The Things She Carried
by Survivor at midnight
Summary: Akiza's essay for AP English in Language and Composition. -In a well developed essay, describe the objects and things that you carry, and explain its significance to you and your life.-
Update: May 1, 2016

I am on an update spree today, but I can't seem to get back on board for Seamstress. So I will continue to bombard you all with another new oneshot!

(And yes, I am using the same birthday announcement for all of the things I've updated today.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

*ahem*

Yes, it is my day of birth today. I have turned 18, and am on my way to college. What a life. Damn.

Anyway.

This was another old-as-the-stone-age essay I wrote for Mr. Paccione's AP English in Language and Composition (what a title for a class, I know) back in my junior year of high school. It was, if you can guess, a response to the book The Things They Carried. The other one that I've uploaded that's a oneshot is Secrets, an Ender's Game hidden moment type thing. This, on the other hand, is kind of like Akiza writing the essay.

Just a note before you go on, there is mention of self harm in this. Nothing really gory or bloody or anything, but it's clear enough what's going on. If you want to avoid it, it's the section in the middle that starts with _italicized conversation._

So I will shut up now, and let you enjoy (or hate or semi-like or toast) this little thingy!

Disclaimer: мен Ю ги оо 5ds таандык эмес (Phonetic pronuciation: men Yu gi oo 5ds taandık emes) (Kyrgyz)

* * *

Name: Akiza Izinski

Class: AP English in Language and Composition

Professor: Mr. Paccione

 _The Things I Carry_

 _Prompt: The theme of carrying in the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien i_ _s a central ideal throughout the work. The men not only carry the necessary weapons into war, but small trinkets that all play an important role to each of them - it makes them human. They also carry many emotional burdens that weigh them down just as much as their physical burdens do. In a well developed essay, describe the objects and things that you carry, and explain its significance to you and your life. You can include past scenes from your own life if you so please. Be sure to use some of O'Brien's writing techniques in your own essay, such as periodic sentences, metaphor and simile, diction and syntax, and pay close attention to detail._

 _..._

If you ever want to learn about a person, just look through their things. Look at where they are placed. Are they easy to get to? That means the person uses them frequently. Are they worn out? That means they are handled often. Are there multiples or similar copies of the same type of item? That means the person is prone to losing things, and that that particular item is of great importance. Are they hidden in a bag or worn on their person? That thing may or may not be of great personal sentimental value, and that person wishes either to hide it or show it to the world. Every small detail can tell a myriad of things about someone.

Like how a girl wore a silver watch and gold Paris necklace from her beloved around her neck. Or how she always had her deck strapped to the outside of her right hip, ready to go at a moment's notice. Or how she wore exactly seven bracelets on her left arm, only, never on her right. Or even how she kept a small mirror to check her makeup in case she ended up crying in the small inside front pocket of her red school bag, next to her pens and pencils and erasers and staplers with a pack of extra staples and cell phone and headphones and wallet (which, coincidentally, was also from her beloved). Her stash of hair ties and a pack of tissues floated around there as well, for when she couldn't stand to leave her hair down a second longer or had a bad allergy attack.

Attached to a small loop to the left of the front pocket was her keys, or rather, her long set of key chains and two keys – one for the front door (a silver thing with a worn down number, long forgotten) and one for the back door (a bronze-yellow, the name of the company that made the copy of her father's key still fresh and visible). But her key chains were also interesting. She had one from the Empire State Building in New York City, two from Florida, another from San Francisco, one that her aunt had given her on her trip to London, etched with the words 'Classy Lady', and a penny souvenir from her trip to Lake George, and a lanyard she made by hand six summers ago, and her flash drives with essays and PowerPoints and notes and pictures and quotes and a flashlight or two and a homemade tag with her name and pictures of her and her brother, posing with smiles for school pictures–

* * *

"Okay, Hayley and Claire, next!"

Akiza swung her head around again to the front of the line. Where _was_ he? Honestly, how long could it take to change into a presentable outfit? They were going to be called soon, for crying out loud! Biting her lower lip in anxiety, she scanned the large, overly-crowded rinky-dink gymnasium, where the entire school was pressed into the back to make room for the bulky picture equipment. Of all the days to have to deal with this!

"Hey, Akiza, could you help me tie my tie?"

She huffed. _There_ he was, the little blighter. Why couldn't he keep his head on straight for _one stupid day_? Spinning on her already-aching-from-standing-for-over-an-hour heels, Akiza yanked her friend Sayer closer and quickly did up his tie. Just in time as well, because no sooner had she let her hands drop was her surname being called and a teacher ushering-leading-shoving them towards the Victorian Garden backdrop. Sayer, for some inconceivable reason, was tittering like a schoolgirl. She, however, was pouting and glowering and generally looking put off as the photographer busied himself with positioning her and her brother.

"Smile!"

She didn't want to smile.

Sayer nudged her. "Hey Akiza. Remember when….."

She couldn't help it. A small grin broke out on her face. _Click, flash,_ done. And the picture came out okay after all. She looked happy. Not like she wanted to wring Sayer's neck, or like she couldn't care less about the photo, or like she was worried about where she was going for high school, or what was waiting for her back at home.

Happy. Just simply happy.

Her normally I'm-going-to aggravate-you-to-the-point-you-wish-you-could-rip-me-a-new-one friend had done something nice-ish for her.

Maybe her brother wasn't a _total_ waste of space.

Maybe.

* * *

She also, on certain days – Fridays, to be exact - carried her worn pink ballet shoes, the leather on the bottom turned black and tearing around the edges because of their constant use, and her hair braided down and tied back with a black hair clip to keep it out of her face. Her guitar might be slung over her shoulder, the smooth tan wood making a dull hollow _thu-_ _thud_ as she walked and if she tapped the neck just right, the small _twang_ of the strings.

She brought in her head with her the music she would dance to later that day, or sing to, or play, depending on what the agenda called for. Scales and arpeggios and melodies and harmonies and modulations and key changes and tabs and chords and riffs all flounced about her head, slipping though her lips and into the air. The sheet music tucked away in a black binder in her bag scrolled through her mind, the little black sixteenth notes and half rest and flats and accents and key signatures creating a dance of dark and light, mixing and congealing to make a beauty that she sashayed and pirouetted alongside with.

She also remembered quotes or pictures that she later printed out and took home in a plastic red folder to tape onto her walls, which by now was covered top to bottom. Posters, index cards of every conceivable color, scraps of looseleaf, printed pages, blank pages colored with pen or pencil, markered pages, as much as she could she stuck on her walls and on the brown veneered furniture and on the door and even on the ceiling.

She kept small words from off of those walls with her, words that helped her remember that she was someone of importance. That she wasn't a waste of space, or a mistake, or a variable so insignificant that nothing she would ever do would leave an impact of notice. To remind her that she _mattered_.

* * *

" _She isn't worth all the time and energy we put into her! Year after year after year we wait to see improvement! And what do we get? Nothing! Not one goddamned, fucking thing!"_

 _"_ _She's only ten! She's still just a child! Be patient with her!"_

 _"_ _I have been! For too damned long! I've had it! She can die on the streets for all I care now!"_

What did she do wrong? Was she not good enough? Even after she had tried her best, no one was happy. Was there something wrong with her?

Akiza looked in the full length mirror hanging on her bedroom door. Touched the small scar on the back of her head, a smooth raised ridge, mirrored on her right shoulder, both from being burned, the former from a straightening iron, the latter from a clothes iron. Neither one had bled. The skin had just sort of … bubbled up, like something bad strained to get out and leave. Was that what was wrong with her? She had stopped letting the bad bleed out of her? She remembered when she was younger, how often she would fall and get cut, and bleed, and her parents wouldn't yell and she was happy. Ever since the clothes iron incident, she had stopped getting hurt. Stopped bleeding. It made sense. Around then everyone kept getting mad. Maybe that was the problem…

She looked over to her art table. At her art knife. It wasn't a long blade, the plastic handle molding to her grip, even as it got bigger and stronger over time. And it wasn't even very sharp anymore, after all the times she had used it on paper and cardboard and plastic. But the tip was just sharp enough to pull a thin line of blood out. Not even enough to run. But it was there. And it hurt.

Would mommy and daddy be happy now? Now that some of the bad had left her?

No. They weren't.

It took her one month, two weeks and five days to realize that she wasn't the problem. They were.

But it took her years to get rid of all of the scars that that month and a half had accumulated.

* * *

She wasn't particularly proud to say it, but she carried hatred. A loathing of her parents and people like them. People who spewed words out thoughtlessly without caring who they hurt, so long as it suited their purposes sickened her. She brought along a good amount of regret, for those people and their poor existence, as well as for herself, for letting their words affect her. A sadness pressed down on her almost every day, sadness for how she had lost so much.

And yet she flew alongside the dreams her mind made up, a fantasy where she could get lost in the world that was far from perfect but more a home to her than the four walls she lived in, and she raced with the stories that sprang from those dreams and reared like wild stallions, majestic and free and untamed, and she caught them and tamed them with a pen and paper and words and rode them faster than the wind and farther than the sun or night sky could reach and lived with a hope that she could land among the stars and breathe air fresher than that of a mountaintop spring's and just live and dream…

* * *

Akiza's eyes fell on the neon green lights of her alarm clock. 2:35 am. An _unholy_ hour to wake up.

Normally. But not tonight. Oh no. That dream was by far the best yet. She _had_ to write it down. She _couldn't_ lose that one.

As she stumbled out of the sheets that were trying to cocoon her in, she groped for the light and turned it on halfway. She snatched a pen from the dresser, and tore page after page out of one of her notebooks. And scribbled furiously across the white space, the pen a black blur in her hand. Sheet after sheet filled with words, like water from a spout, through her fingers and into the ink and onto the paper. They just kept coming, a torrential flow that would not recede but build and build and build and overflow until it took you with it, because you didn't control the story, it dragged you along for the ride and sent you places that didn't exist and were realer than the very air you were breathing and it flooded you and lifted you higher and dragged you down deeper and showed you things that were impossible and didn't make any type of sense and yet did all at once. And the words. The words. Words and words and wordsandwordsand-

A tear dropped onto the paper, just short of where her pen had inked the last word.

 _Finished._

Akiza lifted the last page off her lap and set it neatly on top of the stack that had grown besides her. Stapling it, being careful to keep another tear from smearing the ink, she slipped it into a folder under her pillow and rested her head on top of it. She sighed and watched as the sun rose over the housetops and trees and breathed…

* * *

 **A/N:** So a few notes.

I obviously inserted Akiza's name in certain places, just to remind you that she's the one thinking/talking/doing. And I didn't own a duel disk or deck back in high school. And I kept my little troubled past episode instead of changing it to something else, because it worked so well. Originally, I had Luna writing this essay, and the friend scene was originally a brother scene, because I obviously have a younger brother. It was little changes like that.

Oh, and I do apologize that Sayer was a little OOC. But for now, he's kind of a bird.

Once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! *confetti and streamers everywhere while a marching band plays Happy Birthday to strobe lights*

*ahem*

Anywho... please like, share, follow, and review, and as always, be safe everyone!


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